Janet Napolitano’s Sorry Service in Arizona Makes Her a Terrible Choice for Homeland Security Secretary

Check out this story from 2008 about janet napolitano. Seems like this guy had her pegged...

By Michael Lacey Thursday, Nov 27 2008
From phoenixnewtimes.com

Consorting with anti-immigrant enforcers, indulging rank opportunism, and adhering to failed policies seem an unlikely recipe for change we can believe in. And yet this very cocktail of mediocrity — stirred by an early endorsement of Barack Obama — has thrust Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano into the heady midst of Washington's inaugural speculation.

She finds herself on the president-elect's short list for a cabinet seat, as well as on Saturday Night Live's hot seat for parody.

The governor captured the front page of American journalism this month with the announcement that she is the frontrunner to take over the Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano must protect this nation's borders and ensure our safety from terrorism and natural disasters while overseeing billions of dollars in contracts in service of theses goals.

Janet Napolitano has considerable experience failing at administrative oversight.

But it is her role in securing Arizona's frontiers that bears scrutiny.

Confronted with a border state's unavoidable immigration challenges, Napolitano defended the citizenry with a devil's pitchfork. Her multi-pronged strategy: embrace the nation's most regressive legislation; empower a notorious sheriff using cynical political calculations; employ boots on the ground.

And yet she remains beloved by Democratic apologists. Those who cling to Napolitano point out that the alternative to her tepid, and occasionally disgraceful, leadership would be a Republican. That sends her partisan supporters to the fainting couch.

Her faithful base, supine with the vapors, is in no position to consider the record.

Here, quite simply, is the situation.

According to September's GAO report, Homeland Security squandered $15 billion in the past five years on contracts that failed, fell behind schedule, or were over budget. From Katrina to airport security, federal money grew on stunted trees.

And there is little reason to believe this is the sort of mess Napolitano can untangle.

In Arizona, the Department of Transportation, which Napolitano oversaw, bungled billions, the largest contracts in the state's history, by hiring firms embedded with the state agency's former employees and cronies. The ballot proposition that made all this possible was financed, of course, by the very corporations that stood to benefit. The glaring favoritism in the roadway contracts precipitated expensive litigation ("Friends at Work," Sarah Fenske, June 1, 2006).

Furthermore, Homeland Security, like every government agency, is under acute budgetary pressures having little to do with malfeasance.

Facing similar revenue shortfalls in Arizona, Napolitano ducked hard choices, refused to tighten the state's belt and opted for accounting gimmicks: highway radar to raise funds with increased ticketing of motorists; future lottery money diverted to current funding gaps.

Mere corruption, greed, and the cupidity of boondoggle bookkeeping in hard times — these are simple things to understand, if not sanction, within a state government.